Hit The Road, Jack!
by cooroo
Summary: Written for the August WSOTT Rumble. How does Dallas Winston really spend his Friday nights? With a girl? Well, kind of...


**Well, before you read this, you should know the theme of August's rumble: And in Walked Weird. The point was to write one of the boys doing something out of character. This was what my odd mind came up with. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders – S. E. Hinton does. I don't own Hit The Road, Jack – Ray Charles and ****Percy Mayfield** ** do. I also don't own any of the bands and singers mentioned in this. They own themselves.**

**Enjoy!**

It was Friday night. Where should Dallas Winston be? Maybe getting into a fight. Maybe going around town with Tim Shepard. Maybe riding in a rodeo. Maybe with his girl Sylvia.

But no, he was here, in a dark smoky bar. That in itself wasn't unusual at all, but when you looked at what he was doing... well, you couldn't be sure it was Dallas Winston at all.

There he was, though, looking down at his hands through sunglasses-covered eyes, occasionally glancing up at the patrons of the bar with a cocky grin on his face, the kind of grin that said 'I'm having the time of my life and you're not'. His hands were all but flying over the piano keys, somehow never hitting the wrong one. His left hand's fingers jammed down on the keys while his right hand's continued dancing as the music came to its rousing crescendo.

There was a smattering of applause as it finished. Dally grinned around at the men who played along with him. He didn't actually know any of them. In this bar, nobody knew anybody and that was the way Dally liked it. That way he wasn't in any danger of anybody from the gang or Tim Shepard's outfit finding out. People around here didn't even know his real name – he was simply known as New York.

Dally started playing furiously again, tapping his foot on the floor in time. The other men, recognising the song, joined in and the bass player called, "Take it, New York!"

Dally smirked. This was something that was said nearly every time he was in here, but he never got used to how corny it sounded. All the same, he took it.

After finishing Professor Longhair's 'Hey Little Girl' and a few other favourites, there was a request for anything by Ray Charles. Dally grinned wolfishly as one of the blonde waitresses – a real fox called Nancy – ran over and started singing the well-known chorus. "Hit the road, Jack, and don't come back..."

Dally started singing his part of the song. "Whoa, woman, oh woman, don't treat me so mean..." Yes, Dallas Winston not only played the piano; he sang, too. Not even something tuff like Elvis, but Ray Charles. He winked at Nancy at he continued with his part. Hopefully she'd join him for a drink after this. Here, of course, or somewhere nearby, where there was no chance of running into anybody he knew. He would enjoy showing off a girl like her to Shepard, but it wasn't worth the risk of her mentioning something about his piano playing or singing. It would take a lot of punches to make the leader of the Shepard gang forget something like that. Curly Shepard would be even harder; the kid didn't know how to quit when he was ahead.

Dallas shook his head, thinking about it, and nearly hit the wrong note. _Mustn't get distracted_, he told himself. It was a mistake he had made a lot in the early days of playing. He'd start thinking about the gang, possibly even imaging that somebody who had just walked in was Two-Bit or Steve, and he'd have two left hands playing. Or, no, worse than that, because he could play pretty damn well with his left hand. He'd suddenly be playing with two left _feet_.

But those days were over, thank God, and he was now known throughout the bar as New York, the tuffest pianist around. It had taken a lot to get that reputation, a lot of fast finger movement and some quick fights, held outside the bar, of course. He didn't want to lose his job or anything. It would be near impossible to get back.

Getting it had been easy enough, though. It had been a rainy Friday night about a year ago, and Dally had been wet, cold, and bleeding from a meeting with some smart-ass kids earlier. Well, he had been bleeding, but that didn't matter. They'd be scared to even look him in the eye ever again.

He hadn't been near somewhere that he could stay for the night, and the combination of wind and rain was freezing him half to death. He had ducked into the first bar he had seen, despite the music they were playing, ordered a whisky, and downed it in one go.

An hour later, Dally was still there, still sitting on the same bar stool, still drinking, when he had overheard a conversation between the apparent manager of the place and the bartender. Well, maybe 'overheard' isn't the quite the right word, because the manager was talking loudly enough for the entire room to hear.

"I don't care if there's a _flood_ in his front yard, he can still get here."

"Bill, what happened was -"

"He's lost his job, that's what's happened. Call him and tell him he's fired." The balding manager had looked around the room before barking, "And then help me find another pianist."

Hearing these words, Dally had suddenly been forcefully reminded of playing the piano in New York bars and occasionally playing a chord or two in Buck's place... when it was empty, of course. He stood and, not knowing if it was him or the alcohol talking, had said, "I'll do it."

That evening, two hours and what seemed like a million songs later, Dally had left the bar with, despite his fingers making a couple of mistakes, a job on Friday nights at Bill's bar. It paid real well and, much as he hated to admit it, it was a job he enjoyed. The only problem was that Bill wasn't like Buck Merril; he wasn't the kind of guy you could manipulate.

Well, that, and the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about somebody finding out.

But that wasn't likely, he forced himself to remember. He could just relax and enjoy playing and stop glancing at the door like he was paranoid or something. Even if the guy who just walked in _did_ look amazingly like Two-Bit.

The evening finished off with a song by The Beatles, Dally mentally cringing throughout the entire thing. He had always liked Ray Charles and, once he had actually listened to them, the likes of James Brown and Professor Longhair weren't bad at all, but he had never been able to stand The Beatles, and never would. The occasional person 'round here seemed to dig them, though, and the band couldn't really deny a request. But it was a good thing that people who frequented this bar often chose to listen to good music, otherwise he would have quit a long time ago.

But the song was finally over, and Dally stood and walked over to Nancy. "Join me for a drink?"

She glanced around, then nodded. Her shift ended in ten minutes and if Bill was drunk, like he was now, it was easy to sneak off early. "Yeah, aw'right."

They headed to a nearby bar and drank themselves silly. The last thing Dally really remembered was her grinning idiotically at him as he took her hand and led her out of the bar, tripping over his own feet.

The next thing he knew, he was waking up in an unknown car, sun glaring into his eyes. He shut them and groaned, trying to move himself off the stick shift, which was digging uncomfortable into his back. One of his many problems, though, was that if he moved, he would definitely throw up. Which, judging from the smell, Nancy already had. And, he found out when he cracked open his eyes, it was all over his pants, which were half on, half off.

That evening at Buck's, when Tim Shepard and Merril himself asked him what he had been up to the night before, Dallas had stared at them for a moment or two before replying, "Nothing much. It was just a regular Friday night. Spent it with a real cute broad, Nancy."

They didn't need to know the details.

**Ok, I'm just curious – can anybody else actually see Dally playing the piano and singing or is that just me?**

**I'd love to know what you think.**


End file.
